The Linux Foundation, and the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), released an online training course that “explores facts about diversity in technology, the importance of diversity to innovation, the basics of unconscious and social bias, and how to recognize the different ways unconscious bias manifests itself in technical settings.”
It is called Open Source Community Orientation, and the organizations state that the ultimate goal of the course is to promote diversity in the community, which according to the introductory slides of the course is missing.
According to U.S. Department of Labor statistics presented in the course, women hold 26% of computer jobs, 19% of software engineering jobs, and only 11% of open source programmers. These are low numbers considering that women make up 57% of the total workforce.
On the other hand, the problem of underrepresentation appears to be improving, the Linux Foundation reports, but points out that the same study reporting increased diversity in hiring is accompanied by an increase in employee-reported discrimination in their workplace experiences.
“This course is intended as a starting point for everyone in the community - from technical staff to managers, executives, support teams and more - to learn more about these issues and how to ensure that everyone feels comfortable in the workplace and in the wider community. ", Reports the Linux Foundation.
The lesson is free and available to anyone with a link to the Linux Foundation, which is also free.
Open Source Community Orientation